


sick and full of pride

by poisonrain



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Clarke, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-01 11:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5204516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonrain/pseuds/poisonrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tries to leave a gap between herself and Clarke, room for stuttered syllables and half formed thoughts, space for red and wrong and want. (If I leaned a little to the left, bet our fingertips would touch.) It doesn't work though, not with Clarke insisting on taking up way more than her half of the bed, a starfish to rival Lexa's rigid plank.</p><p>“Hey, Lexa? You know that... person you broke up with? The one that you told me about on the first day of term?”</p><p>She turns round to face her, breath hot against Lexa's lips, breaking the invisible barrier of cloth and skin. “Why did you... you know, end things?”</p><p>And maybe it's because Clarke said “person” instead of boy, or the fact that it's two am and all her pride has turned to ashes in the dark, but somehow she starts spilling her soul, a tabloid free for all.<br/>....................<br/>Because she’s destined for the sweetest of epilogues, and Lexa doesn’t want to end her story with anyone but Clarke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_The heart is a metaphor._

Lexa sighs into her paperback copy of _“_ _A Skyscraper_ _'_ _s Oath.”_ Really? _This_ is the assigned reading for next term? Talk about cliché. The heart is no more than a machine, an elaborate engine that pumps blood around the body. Perhaps she should be majoring in anatomy for dummies, rather than English Lit.

Things were different, back at her old school. _In more ways than one._ They'd been reading the classics, Austen and Dickens, tales of woe and daring and... more woe.

Costia's favourite was Wuthering Heights, a story of vengeance, disguised as a 356 page love poem. She'd spend hours locked away in her, _their_ room, reading until the sky bruised pink and blue, and Lexa's neck ached from staring up at her.

_Watch a nebula for long enough, and it may turn into a star. Wish upon a supernova, and ashes will dust bare arms._

Maybe this was a mistake. Breaking up, moving away. Just because she wasn't _in love_ with Costia, doesn't mean they weren't happy. _She's cold coffee and off-key songs, not quite a perfect fit, but better than empty brick and_ _white walls._

_Her eyes were the wrong colour,_ Lexa tells herself. But she's been seeing in shades of grey for so long, she isn't sure what “right” looks like any more. Maybe it's _not_ stupid metaphors _,_ heart beating out of your chest when she kisses your cheek, breaking in two when she captures his lips. Perhaps it's just... stability.

God, what an awful word.

Stifling a yawn, Lexa turns back to the book. Her first official day of classes begins tomorrow, and she's loath to fall behind. But there's still unpacking to be done, and she can't forget to call-

Wait, is someone knocking on her door? As far as she can remember, Lexa didn't tell anyone which college she was transferring to, much less give them her dorm number.

“I'm coming,” she snaps, the sound of bone on wood echoing through her (mostly empty) space.

Could this be one of those “hey neighbour can I borrow a cup of sugar?” encounters? Lexa is pretty sure that kind of stuff only happens in movies, but maybe-

“Raven, you asshole, I'm gonna... Lexa?”

The world doesn't stop turning. Lexa's book sits on her rickety table, page folded over. The harsh overhead lights flicker once, twice, three times, before cloaking the dorm in darkness. Freshmen laugh and chatter in the distance, static from a show nobody's watching.

The world might not stop turning, but Lexa's does.

Clarke Griffin stands frozen in her doorway, a snapshot from three years ago. If at all possible, she somehow got hotter. And taller. For the first time in a long time, maybe too long, Lexa's heart hammers wildly in her ribcage.

“Clarke?”

The blonde, for her part, seems pretty unfazed by the chance encounter. Not that Lexa is surprised. Clarke is a “roll with the punches” kind of girl. Five years in the glass fish tank labelled 'high school' taught her that.

“All the colleges in all the world, and you just had to walk into mine.”

“Clarke, I think you were the one who-”

“Lexa, I'm kidding. I must have got the wrong dorm. Wow, you really haven't changed a bit, have you?”

_If I were the same, some hapless teenager made of lilacs and violet, I'd beg you to stay, dream of merging the metaphors between our bones. But you made me strong, a tower of stone, and now all my petals have turned to dust._

“I guess not.”

Maybe Lexa should invite her in. That's not weird, right? Just two old friends catching up over drinks, awkwardly sharing details about the last three years of their lives.

“I should...” Clarke trails off, runs her hand through tangled hair. Lexa tries not to break character when her finger gets stuck in a knot, fights the urge to make some lame joke or laugh just like old times. This is not “old times.” She doesn't even really know Clarke, not any more.

_But she's part of you, isn't she? All blood and root, six letters burned into the nape of your neck. You think in the shape of her mouth, could map the catacombs of her ribcage, better than your own. Don't try to hide it, your favourite colour is blue, not gold._

“Goodbye, Clarke.”

“Yeah, see you.” (When? Soon, tomorrow, next week? In another lifetime, perhaps? She doesn't specify.)

And though Lexa would never admit it, she doesn't stop watching until Clarke fades into the corridor, a blur of zip-up leather and washed out florals. It doesn't hurt half as much as the first time.

 

….......

When Lexa thought about high school, she pictured colourful punch and late-night parties, dreamed of finally understanding the lyrics to her favourite songs. _They sang of two halves become whole, and I could only listen, to the beat of my lonely drum._

She never expected to spend her senior year in love, certainly didn't think that it would hurt quite so much. “I love you” is supposed to be sung at brunch and promised on side-walks, bleeding forever into paper cups.

It shouldn't be whispered to four walls, a sin beneath cotton covers. _I want you like you want him, stuck in a cycle of chapped lips and self loathing, repeat until successfully broken._

That's why, when Clarke asks “Hey, have you signed up for any classes at UCL yet?” Lexa shakes her head, casts her gaze down to dirty tile.

“Actually, I think I need to start over,” she lies. “You know, new school, new state.”

In truth, she can't stand the idea of attending the same college as Clarke and Finn, becoming an ink stain in the story of their great love affair.

“Wait, what? Lexa, we've been planning this since we were kids. Start together, finish together, remember?” She clutches cold fingers, smile all cracked, but still warm like the sun. Lexa's chest aches too much to smile back.

“We're not kids any more, Clarke. I just... I don't want the same things that you do.” _You want Paris and Berlin, pin-points on paper maps. The only universe I've ever found worth exploring is skin deep,_ _city lights under your t-shirt._

“The same thing? It's a college degree, not a death sentence. Your second choice school isn't nearly as-”

“ _Close to you,”_ Lexa almost finishes. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but she's determined to prove an exception to the rule. Anything is better than standing on the sidelines, an extra in a rom-com she isn't part of.

“California is just the same as any other university in the country.” _(Three thousand miles of open road, but we'll still be looking up at the same moon._ _)_

“Lexa, come on, you can't be serious about this. We're going to share a dorm room, help each other figure out our majors.” More than anything, Clarke just sounds confused. How could she ever understand, what it's like to crave someone you can never have?

“I have to go,” Lexa mutters darkly, thankful for the absence of street lights. _Don't let her see_ _the canvas on your face, a mask of watery paint._

She runs all the way home, trying to fall out of love with the sound of Clarke's voice, hold her own hand for a damned change. No amount of Taylor Swift or Hagen Daz will fix the crack in Lexa's chassis, but maybe the classic “break up routine” will make her feel less alone.

Not that this is a breakup, of course. They weren't girlfriends, nor lovers, constellations who weave the fabric of time in order to be together. _(_ _But god, how I wish we were._ _)_

 

….......

English class goes... okay. Lexa struggles to keep up, namely because she still hasn't read the stupid book. She couldn't make it past the first page, too much prose for her taste. It may as well have been penned by an angsty fifteen year old, not unlike her former self.

When the professor calls on her to answer a question regarding “key themes,” the girl beside her (Olivia? Octavia?) is nice enough to angle her notebook, so Lexa can skim over the small print notes.

“Thanks,” she whispers, when Indra moves on to question someone else.

“It's cool. But, uh, Indra can be kind of strict sometimes. You might want to think about reading the first few chapters before our next class.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

She doesn't expect to see Clarke again. For starters, the campus is so big that Lexa somehow managed to get lost _three time_ s on her way to the cafeteria. And it's not like they'd be taking any of the same classes.

Clarke is probably majoring in fine art or photography, minoring in great hair and nice skin. _It's been so long, yet I still remember your love of_ _tone_ _and shade, the look on your face when we went to the beach to sketch turquoise waves._

Lexa certainly doesn't plan on walking into Biology 101, only to find her childhood crush sitting in the front row. What's more, the only available seat is to the left of Clarke.

“I guess the fates are pretty determined we should talk, huh Lexa?” the blonde jokes, as she slides into place beside her.

This time, Lexa laughs. “It seems that way.” They're silent after that, thighs brushing underneath the ceramic worktop.

Lexa tries to concentrate on the “safety protocol” lecture, but ends up staring at the doodle on Clarke's wrist, the inky masterpiece that makes Van Gogh look like an amateur artist. Clearly, her former best friend hasn't changed all that much.

(If that's really the case, why is she studying pentadactyl limbs, instead of turning dust into dreams, with only the tools in her pencil case?)

Lexa decides to ask her.

“Why are you here, Clarke?” The words come out a little harsher than she'd meant, charcoal between pointed teeth.

“Well, uh...” Clarke even wears uncertainty well, blushing bronze instead of red. “Finn and I broke up before college started. A few weeks after you left, actually.” She looks up from the invisible tapestry between her thighs, land meet sea. _(Blue kissed green._ _)_

“I suppose... I just wanted a fresh start.”

“Me too,” Lexa says, just quietly enough to feel like a secret. “But I kind of meant “what are you doing here?” as in this room, this class?”

“Oh.” She freezes for a second, almost like she's asking the question to herself. “I'm planning on becoming a doctor.” Something flickers across Clarke's face, shadows in a light room. Uncertainty, maybe?

Lexa has only ever known her as a small town girl with paint in her veins, skyline resting between shoulder blades. Sure, she's always an expressed a desire to help people, but... _It's none of my business._

“That's wonderful, Clarke.”

She smiles in response, the kind of grin that would make a lesser girl go weak at the knees. “So what are you doing here?”

“Here as in-”

“Both.”

Lexa pauses, unsure how much of the past three years she's willing to spill. “I broke up with someone too,” she says, unable to add _“her name was Costia.”_

“And I heard this college has a good English programme. That's my major. Biology is just... a back up option.”

“That's wonderful, Lexa,” Clarke mimics, smile turned smirk. Lexa nudges her under the table, tries to remember that Rome wasn't built in a day, that happiness comes at a price.

But then Clarke nudges back, fireworks on denim, and her train of thought crashes into the nearest bridge. _My heart isn't a metaphor, just a cut out shape, and I don't know how much longer this body can contain my brain._

For the first time, she glances at the clock on the wall, notices the huddle of students stampeding out of the door. “I have another class in five minutes,” Lexa blurts, breaking whatever spell she's under.

“That's cool. But I was thinking, maybe we can be lab partners?” Clarke offers, packing books into her own bag.

And because Lexa is new here and her dorm doesn't quite smell like home, the weight of Clarke's arm on her shoulder makes it a little too hard to say no.

“I'd like that.”

“Then it's a date,” Clarke beams, already lost to the chaos of the hallway.

All Lexa can think is: _if people were natural disasters, she'd be the tidal wave to bring the Earth to it's knees,_ _only flowers left to grieve. (Hurricane's got nothing on me._ _)_

She walks to English in silence, tries not to smile at walls and windows, faces she doesn't know.(But I'm picturing you, freeze frame behind my eyelids, a crumpled polaroid.)

When she fails, Lexa can't bring herself to mind at all.

 

 

“Okay so, uh, not to scare you or anything, but my friends can be kind of... intense?”

They're standing outside Clarke's dorm, after the blonde spent the better part of ten minutes convincing her to “hang out” with Raven and Octavia. “To celebrate our new lab partnership,” she'd said, fingers clasped in faux prayer. Lexa reluctantly agreed.

It's been a long time since she hung out with anyone, minus the litre bottle of wine in her mini fridge. Is “hello” still the standard greeting for communicating with peers? Should she adopt the more informal “hey,” perhaps accompanied by a high five?

(Okay, maybe it hasn't been _that_ long.)

“I think I'll be fine,” she says, more for her own sake than Clarke's. “Besides, I already kind of know Octavia.”

“Sure you don't need me to hold your hand?” Clarke teases, pointedly staring at Lexa's clenched fists.

“No, I-”

“I can hear you two whispering in the hallway,” Octavia calls, right on cue. _Speak of the devil and he doth appear._ “Get in here, before Raven eats all of the sour patch kids.”

Her comment is followed by muffled groaning, which she suspects is the product of either murder or making out. “Should we, um-”

Clarke opens the door with her right hand, tugs on Lexa's wrist with her left. _I in black, you in blue, we'd make the picture perfect bruise._

“Ugh, you guys are so gross,” she greets, surrendering her grip on Lexa's arm to aim a throw pillow at the pair. Raven (or, at least, the girl who Lexa can only assume to be Raven), flips her off, but manages to disentangle herself from Octavia.

She's all dark hair and jagged edges, but her eyes seem friendly enough. _And I liked you because she did, wonder when the lines began to blur,_ _when_ _what was once mine became “hers."_

“You must be Lexa, right? Clarke's told me an awful lot about you.” Raven winks, and Clarke hurries to change the subject.

“I rented a movie,” she blurts, brandishing a copy of Pitch Perfect.

“People still do that?” Octavia asks, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “Ever heard of Netflix?”

“Shut up, O,” Clarke retorts, elbowing her friend in the ribs. “It'll be fun.”

Lexa isn't sure that they have the same definition of the word “fun,” but she flops down on the sofa regardless, trying to keep a respectable distance between herself and Clarke. Her (former best friend? New friend?) has always been very... tactile.

Which is totally fine of course, except her seventeen year old self is probably locked up behind a cage of glass, and one more fragile touch may break her in half.

_Count the candles on your birthday cake, wonder if all the past will wash away. (Is my heart still a child's, my liver a teen's? Tell me, will I still want you at twenty three?)_

“I brought popcorn,” she offers, combing through her bag for assorted movie snacks.

“I like her already,” Raven mutters to Clarke, and though Lexa has never cared much for fitting in, never really understood how party invitations equal self esteem, she still smiles a little bit.

“Salted or sweet?”

 

 

Halfway through the third movie of the night, Raven and Octavia not-so-subtly “get too tired to stay up,” and head back to their apartment. Lexa considers leaving, figures that Clarke probably wants to retire to her bedroom, too.

She even gets as far as “I should go and-” before Clarke cuts her off.

“No! I mean, you don't have to. I was going to put some music on, this film kinda sucks.”

She's right, it does suck. “The 100” is some artsy post-apocalyptic drama, too far-fetched to make for good quality television. “I guess it's not too late. I can stay a while longer.”

For some reason, Clarke is thrilled by the news, look on her face like she just saw her first sunset, witnessed a garden in bloom. “Cool. I'll, uh, I'll go and get my iPod.”

_Do you remember the taste of my lips that night// I stole a bit of my mother's perfume?_

“Wait, you like Halsey?” Lexa is beginning to realise that she has a lot to learn about Clarke Griffin, and maybe she won't be as easy to dissect as the frog from yesterday's Biology class. _You got a chest full of secrets, wish I was part of your treasure trove._

Clarke calls out from the kitchen, raising her voice to be heard over the clattering of pots and pans. “Dude, when I had ten cents to my name I still pre-ordered Badlands. Totally worth it.”

_Cause we'll be looking for sunlight// Or the headlights// Till our wide eyes burn blind_

She resumes her place beside Lexa, two glasses in hand. Her eyes shine under the low budget lights, an entire galaxy behind her retinas. “I'm glad we met,” she murmurs, and Lexa wonders if she's talking about the first or the second time. _Does it matter?_

“Me too.” Was Clarke _supposed_ to show up at her door that night, remind her what it feels like to be young and reckless all over again? Lexa certainly isn't used to staying up this late on random Tuesday nights in September; her decaf high usually ends before 10pm.

_Is this my reckoning, the chance to make amends? Is this my punishment, for a time when I wanted more than just friends?_

_Could you imagine the taste of your lips if we never tried to kiss on the drive to Queens?// Cause I imagine the weight of your ribs if you lied between my hips in the backseat_

“You really mean that?” Clarke asks, and Lexa gets the feeling that there's a lot more to her question than she wants to admit.

 

….......

“Hey, Lex, would you rather be a dragon or keep a dragon as a pet?”

Clarke's random interrogation would be easier to understand if she were indeed drunk or high, but Lexa is fairly certain that “sleepover exhaustion” is not a valid form of substance abuse.

“Keep a dragon as a pet.” Who would be crazy enough to trade curves for claws, long hair for pointed teeth? She's fourteen years old, and make-up is more than just war-paint.

_Ask me at age_ _eighteen_ _, and you won't get the same answer. How would I fight fire, without smoke billowing from my lungs? How could I resist the urge to kiss you, without_ _steel_ _for bones?_

“What about you?”

“I don't know. I mean, on one hand, scales are totally cool. Plus, I'd be able to _fly_ , and who doesn't want to see the world from cloud level?”

“But...”

“It'd be pretty lonely. You know, hypothetically speaking, I'd be the only dragon in the whole world.” Lexa frowns. She doesn't like the sound of those words in that order.

“In that case, I change my answer.”

“Really? You'd do that for me?”

She isn't sure whether they're playing the game any more. “You should never have to feel lonely, Clarke.” _Everybody's looking for someone, but stars were never meant to be Earth-bound._

Their fingers meet under the bedsheets, lock in an iron grip. Lexa doesn't know it yet, but she's falling just a little in love.

 

….......

_Feet first, don't fall// Or we'll be running again// Keep close, stand tall_

“I do.” _I really, really do._

 

 

The next few weeks of term pass by in a blur of early starts and sixty three page assignments, set to the tune of Clarke's bad science puns. See: “Are you my sinoatrial node? Because you're making my heart beat,” and “what do you call a stable friendship? _Homie_ -ostasis.”

(Lexa may or may not have laughed at the last one).

She even manages to make it through the first few chapters of “A Skyscrapers Oath,” which seems to feature around some big-shot city lawyer, who rekindles an old romance with her highschool crush. The writer is no Dickens, but it's not as bad as she first thought.

“ _-all I could think about was the weight of the sky and the colour of the sea, and how they didn't mean a damned thing, not when he was laying right next to me._

_You've got religion in the palm of your hand, and I'm just the fool praying to God that you won't leave.”_

Okay, maybe it deserves a little more credit than “not bad.”

“Lexa, can I ask you something?” They're sitting cross-legged on Lexa's bed, currently working through the chapter of their textbook entitled “Genetics and Epidemiology.”

“You can talk to me about anything, Clarke.”

“Uh, thanks.” She clears her throat, traces patterns into Lexa's purple sheet. _I'm shattering like glass, you're painting clouds upon my ceiling. (It feels like I'm in paradise, but somehow I'm not breathing._ _)_

“So there's this art competition. It's no big deal, not really, except the winner gets their work showcased in a local gallery...”

Lexa tries to stay neutral, though she longs to give Clarke a hug, whisper “I'm proud of you” like they're still thirteen years old. (She hasn't even had a chance to put pencil to paper, but I'm already mapping her success in gold.)

“- and an internship.” She bites her lip, presumably wondering what to say next. “Which would be great and all, but it coincides with my degree, and how would I even begin to tell my mom that I'm not totally into the idea of-”

“You should do it,” Lexa murmurs, already sold on a few syllables. _Cause you were born to be a supernova, don't get stuck as a white dwarf._

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Lets be real here, there's no way I can actually make it as an artist.”

“Why not?” The blonde stares at her like she's gone mad, but Lexa remains undeterred. “You're good, Clarke, really good. I see your drawings in the margin of your notebook, scribbled on scraps of paper... you're better than you think.”

Silence falls over the room, and Lexa can't tell where her breathing ends and Clarke's begins. _Would that they were one._

“Just be honest with your mom. Maybe make her dinner first.” The comment is supposed to be light-hearted, but like all machines, her double pump runs out of steam. _Not a metaphor, or even a simile,_ _a story with_ _out_ _any_ _punctuati_ _on._

“Thank you.” The words are soft, catching; making a home on unholy ground. _I'll carve you out of my chest,_ _got no room for anything but_ _the_ _emptiness._

“I was just telling the truth.”

Clarke stares down at her knuckles, probably sees 'starry night' reflected back.“Come with me. To dinner, I mean. My mom loved you when we were kids, she'll be thrilled that we reconnected.”

Lexa tries to refuse, mutters something about this being a “family affair.” Not that she dislikes Ms Gri, _Abby_ or anything, but she'd rather not open the door to her past, all wonky eyeliner and ripped jeans.

“You're family, too,” Clarke says, turning back to the textbook, and oh, okay, maybe Lexa is more screwed that she's ready to admit.

“I'm free this weekend?”

When Clarke pulls her into a hug, arms wrapped around Lexa's waist, she does her best not to inhale. _She smells like coconut and fresh coffee, broken prose you'll never read._

_(But maybe I can scan the pages.)_

 

 

They listen to the radio on the drive upstate, “Young God” filling the space between their seats.

_She says, “Oh, baby girl, you know we're gonna be legends// I'm the queen and you're the queen and we will stumble through heaven”_

“This is my favourite song,” Clarke says casually, like it doesn't matter, like Lexa won't care. But she does. She wants all of her favourites, old and new, wants second, third, _fourth_ times if she can't have firsts.

The last time they had this conversation, it was 2011, and Clarke's favourite song had been “America's Suitehearts” for the better part of two years.

_But do you feel like a young God?// You know the two of us are just young gods// And we'll be flying through the streets with the people underneath// And they're running, running, running_

That's not the only thing that's changed since then.

 

….......

Lexa has never cared much for school dances. Too much standing on the sidelines, making awkward small talk in too-big clothes. What's the appeal of spinning in circles, dancing with gap-toothed boys to a song she's never heard before?

It all seems very “teen movie,” cheesy speeches followed by not-so-fruit punch.

But when Clarke says “Will you come to prom with me?” her heart stutters and stammers, rattles it's bone cage for the third time this week. The word “no” doesn't even enter her head.

“I thought you'd be going with Finn,” Lexa murmurs, trying to still shaking hands, calm the storm under her skin.

“You're more important,” Clarke shrugs, presenting matching corsages. When she fastens the flower around her wrist, sparks fly where finger meets pulse, butterfly wings come undone.

“See? It's a perfect fit.”

Lexa stares just a little too long, notices that their lips are mere inches away. With just the flick of a brush, a single pencil stroke...

“I'd love to,” she blurts, stepping away from the other girl.

_Because I never liked the smell of smoke, ash clouding my throat, hot to the touch. Until I met her, all orange and yellow, a watercolour of my dismay. Maybe if I'm lucky, she'll set us both aflame._

_I love a girl with thousand degree burns, and all the world is black and white (apart from her.)_

….......

 

“- like “here mom, here's some burnt goo, how do you feel about me applying for an art internship and dropping out of my last year of college?”

Lexa snaps back to reality, only catching the last half of Clarke's sentence. “... totally,” she mumbles, hoping her friend won't notice any different.

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Pasta, Lexa. How do I make pasta?” (She may be many things, but “culinary mastermind” isn't one of them.)

“Okay, so first you boil the water and-”

“ _Boil_ the water? You know what, write it down for me.”

Clarke crinkles her nose as she spits “boil,” as though Lexa is rambling about mermaids and goblins, life on other planets. “Cute” is not a term she'd usually use, but Lexa figures that she can make an exception. Just this once, just for Clarke.

_There's a light in the crack that's separating your thighs// And if you wanna go to heaven you should fuck me tonight_

 

 

“I didn't know you could cook, Clarke,” Abby remarks, meeting her daughter's gaze across the dining table.

Lexa almost chokes on her store bought spaghetti, which she had hastily purchased after Clarke's first attempt was so “al dente” it threatened to pose serious dental implications. (She's still got sauce on her shirt from the aftermath of that comment.)

The blonde clears her throat, glaring at Lexa through her raised glass. “Yeah. I guess it's, uh, something I picked up this semester. Not without Lexa's help, of course.”

“Oh, I don't know about that. Clarke makes a mean Filet Mignon. You should try it some time.” If looks could kill, Lexa is fairly certain she'd be tonight's main course, served up with cold fries and stale bread.

Abby nods, twirling pasta round her fork. “I'll have to hold her to that.”

A lull falls over the room, all muffled chewing and tapping feet. She finds herself wondering how many dates Clarke has brought home to meet her mother, how many “Finns” she's kissed at the back door, gloved fingers cupping her face.

Something twists in Lexa's gut, but she pulls out the thorn before it can make roots. _I'll take solace in the fact that I'm the only one who stayed, even if you don't want me that way._

“So Lexa, do you have any plans for after graduation? I know Clarke is headed off to medical school...”

She opens her mouth to answer the question, mutter something non-committal about “working on her writing.” But then Clarke interjects. “Actually mom, that's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“...I don't want to be a doctor.” And there it is, the truth that Lexa has known since she first sat beside Clarke in biology, the way her smile splintered at the edges, sketches spilling over the lines in her notebook.

“There's this art competition; I'm talking once in a lifetime kind of opportunity. And maybe before I wouldn't have considered it, but I don't think I could live with myself if I didn't at least try-”

Abby purses her lips, silver scratching china. “We've been over this before, Clarke. Drawing is a hobby, not a career. If your father were here...”

“Dad would want me to be happy. Why don't you want the same thing?” She's part fire, part glass, about ten seconds away from blowing up or burning out.

Lexa reaches for her hand under the table, extinguishing Clarke's flames, but fanning her own. She tries not to think about the sky and sea, snippets from books that will never be. _(Dumb metaphors be damned,_ _this_ _haribo jelly_ _is beating out of my chest._ _)_

“Of course I want you to be happy, but that's really not the point. What about financial stability, medical insurance? Do you expect to pay the bills with paint?”

“Basically, yeah. That's kind of how the whole “I'm an artist” thing works.”

Abby sighs into her water. “Lexa, I think maybe you should go.” She stands up to leave, but Clarke tugs her back down, nails digging into skin.

“There's nothing you can say to me that you can't say in front of her.” _T_ _here it is again, a chorus of “maybe she does” and “perhaps we do.” She's tired of being forever f_ _if_ _teen, eyes averted in the locker room, confessions not quite whispered against collarbones._

“All I'm saying is that you should give this some more thought. I don't want you to do anything hasty, anything you'll regret.”

“I've wanted this since I was six years old,” Clarke says, and she sounds sad, small, like if it wasn't for Lexa's grip she'd fade into the walls.

“It's true,” Lexa adds, even though this isn't her battle to fight, war to be won. “Clarke was born to be an artist.” The phrase is cheesy, overused; at least seven different kinds of cliché. Claiming anyone was “born” to do anything than live, breathe, and die is territory she usually avoids, but for the second time today she finds herself making an exception. _Just for Clarke._

Abby sighs again, boring holes into her cold spaghetti. “I need some time to think about... all of this.”

“I get that. We should head home, anyway.”

Clarke embraces her mom on the way out, but it's stiff and uncomfortable, like two relatives who haven't seen each other for a long time, forced to exchange Christmas gifts of chocolate and soap. Nothing quite says “are we half cousins on my mother's side?” like bath products and caramel creams.

“Thank you,” Clarke mumbles, once they're out of earshot, back in the safety of their metal box. “For coming with me. You didn't have to do that.” Lexa wishes to god she'd stop being so damned grateful, turning her snow-globe heart on it's head.

“I wanted to.”

They hold hands all the way home, and she can't help but be disappointed, when they reach their destination and return to separate dorms. _If only you were mine and I was yours._

 


	2. Chapter 2

_In A Skyscrapers Oath, Alycia's feelings for her old flame are made evident during the “pre dinner” scene. The extended “flower” metaphor conveys-_

Lexa taps out a rhythm on her keyboard, unable to finish the sentence she's been working on for what feels like hours. Will there ever come a time where she won't, as Clarke would say, “bullshit” her essays?

Probably not.

“I hate college,” she tells her stack of folders, the dying house-plant that she keeps forgetting to water. She's unsurprised (if not a little disappointed) when the brown skeleton fails to reply.

_...a sense of longing and fragility, which is emphasized by Taylor's use of the word-_

“Hey, Lexa, you in there?” She jumps up at the sound of Clarke's voice, accidentally typing out “ckjhffghglkhu.” They haven't seen each other since the night her friend “cooked” dinner, and Lexa spent the night smiling into her pillow.

“Uh, yeah. It's open, just come in.”

She doesn't expect Clarke to be carrying everything but the kitchen sink, bag big enough to house a small village.

“Can I stay here tonight? I know it's short notice, but there's a gas leak in my dorm, and I don't have nearly enough earplugs to survive a night with Raven and Octavia.”

Lexa can't think of anything worse. She's stuck somewhere between “I used to have a huge crush on you” and “oh god you're still so attractive.” _Unwritten, unspoken, unbent; think I heard on the radio that it's the end of the world._ _Can I kiss you then?_

“Yes. I mean, of course, Clarke. I'll sleep on the floor, you can have my bed.”

“Dude, seriously? I don't have cooties.” Wait, she can't seriously be implying that they should-

“It'll be like ninth grade all over again.” Ninth grade. In other words, the year that Lexa's life turned into an old school remake of “Faking It.”(Only without the MTV dramatics.)

“That sounds... great.”

The blonde grins, draping her jacket over the back of Lexa's desk chair. “Awesome. So where do you keep the baked goods?”

 

Later, much later, an entire box of strawberry pop tarts later, they're gazing up at the plastic stars on Lexa's bedroom ceiling, her half finished assignment long forgotten.

She tries to leave a gap between herself and Clarke, room for stuttered syllables and half formed thoughts, space for red and wrong and _want. (If I leaned a little to the left, bet our fingertips would touch._ _)_ It doesn't work though, not with Clarke insisting on taking up way more than her half of the bed, a starfish to rival Lexa's rigid plank.

“Hey, Lexa? You know that... _person_ you broke up with? The one that you told me about on the first day of term?”

She turns round to face her, breath hot against Lexa's lips, breaking the invisible barrier of cloth and skin. “Why did you... you know, end things?”

And maybe it's because Clarke said “person” instead of boy, or the fact that it's two am and all her pride has turned to ashes in the dark, but somehow she starts spilling her soul, a tabloid free for all.

“Her name was Costia.” Lexa pauses, chancing a glance at her friend's expression. It remains unchanged. Which is... weird, right? She expected a bit more of a reaction after twenty one years in the proverbial closet.

“She sat next to me in English class, asked me out after a month of borrowed pens and Shakespearean flirting.” Lexa feels a pang of guilt at the memory of her ex, can't help but wish they'd parted on better terms.

“We went to dinner, I made her a mix tape, there was talk of getting a cat...” She refuses to meet Clarke's gaze, continues talking to the “Pulp Fiction” poster above her head.

“And it was... nice. _She_ was nice.” _Costia deserved_ _better,_ _so much_ _better, than_ _some dumb_ _girl_ _still stuck on a ghost._

“But...” Clarke prompts, fingering the tag on her borrowed shirt, _Lexa's_ shirt. _(She looks better in it than you ever could, but instead of turning green it turns you on; a lipstick “mine” whispered in foreign tongues._ _)_

“She just wasn't the one,” Lexa mumbles, when what she really means is “she wasn't you.”

There's a pause, a break, a mid line caesura in an ancient poem. Her heart hammers, skips a beat, dances to a song penned half a hundred years ago. She wonders if Clarke is only now realising the impact of her words, if she's weirded out by the fact that Lexa likes girls.

“If this makes you uncomfortable I can-”

“So you've kissed a girl before?” Of all the sentences that she expected to come from her mouth, that certainly was not one of them. _I'm not a test tube in biology class,_ _you can't pick me up_ _just_ _to_ _spit me out._

“Clarke, why do you-”

The blonde tilts her chin, and the action causes their noses to brush, an Eskimo kiss of two five year olds playing at being in love. If Lexa couldn't feel the weight of Clarke's hand on her hip, she's pretty sure she'd force a laugh.

“Trust me,” Clarke murmurs, and she does, oh god she does, but Lexa isn't quite sure that she trusts herself: not to want what she can't have.

She should probably run, or hide, find a quiet place where her best friend's lips aren't pressing against her own.

But then Clarke is kissing her- for real this time, and she tastes like strawberry icing, a reminder of the snack they shared earlier. And there are fingers slipping underneath her shirt, and tongue and bite and moans, and Lexa is fairly certain that they're two halves forging to make whole.

No space now, no gaps for her lies to spill out; fists tangled in hair, drum-beats become one. She's tired of pretending, sick of telling herself that her feelings are all in the past. Lexa wants this, wants Clarke, spells out the letters on the jut of collarbone, the soft skin of her stomach.

“I want you, too, Lex,” Clarke promises, so softly that Lexa is pretty sure she imagined it. Maybe she's also imagining the body on top of her own, the way she shivers when Clarke kisses the hollow of her throat.

_I don't think I ever stopped loving you, just hit pause; I think I'd die, if we were ever to part for good._

When their lips meet for a second time, Lexa decides she doesn't want to think any more.

 

She wakes to arms encircling her waist, blonde hair tickling her chin. Lexa counts the number of textbooks on her dresser, squirms against the lumpy mattress she's had since freshman year. _Seven, and ouch with a capital “O.”_

She has to make sure that this is real, that _Clarke_ is real, that they actually... well, “hooked up,” for lack of a better word. (It almost sounds too crude, too trifling; to describe the gold dust stained on Lexa's palms.)

So far, the scene seems relatively assuring. There are no flying hamsters or mutant dogs, cyborgs lurking in her coffee cup.

“Hey, you,” Clarke mumbles, shifting so they're facing each other, legs locked beneath the covers. Her sleepy voice is undoubtedly the hottest thing that Lexa has ever heard, and it's almost impossible not to lean over and kiss her again.

She wonders if she's allowed to just-

_My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard// And they're like// It's better than yours// Damn right it's better than yours_

Clarke's personalised alarm successfully ruins the moment, as well as giving Lexa a mini heart attack.

“Crap, how late did we sleep?” the blonde grumbles, fishing around on the floor for her jeans. “I have class in ten minutes.” _Not long enough,_ is all Lexa can think.

She immediately misses Clarke's warmth, bed hogging and all. It's not like she's selfish enough to ask her to skip Art History so they can spend the morning making out, but a five minute conversation would be rather nice.

Four years of feelings and full stops, a mantra of “get it together, Woods; she's straight.” But then there was talk of Costia and cats, and now her whole life is off balance, out of whack.

“I'm so sorry to take off like this,” Clarke babbles, fingers fiddling with her bra clasp. “We'll talk later though, right?” Lexa gulps, tries not to let Clarke bewitch her with shiny abs. It should be illegal to look _that_ good _this_ early.

“Later, um, later is good, yes...”

Clarke laughs. “You're cute.”

She presses a kiss to Lexa's cheek on the way out, and even after everything they did last night, it still makes her blush several shades of pink. _(She tucks the gesture away in her pocket, saves it for a scrap book they haven't yet made._ _)_

For the first time in what feels like forever, Lexa feels more than just “okay.”

 

Her new found optimism doesn't last long. Ten am brings the English class that Lexa manages to be spectacularly late for, after trying to finish the essay she got too, uh, _distracted_ to complete yesterday.

Luckily, Octavia is more than happy to catch her up. On social events, that is. Not their actual work.

“So you're coming to Bell's party on Friday, right?”

Having never spoken to her classmate/friend's brother in her entire life, Lexa is pretty sure she's going to have to pass.

“I'm not exactly the partying type.” That much is true. The only college party she ever attended was with Costia, and it consisted of Lexa playing sudoku on her phone in the corner, whilst her girlfriend played the part of “social butterfly.”

“Come _on,_ there's going to be alcohol, and music... I'm going to be there, Raven's going to be there.” She pauses, grin lighting her face. “ _Clarke_ is going to be there.”

Is Lexa really that transparent? She may as well be carrying a sign which reads “Ask me about my huge, gay crush on Clarke Griffin!”

“Oh, well if _you're_ going to be there, how could I refuse?” It seems that Clarke's fondness for sarcasm is rubbing off on her.

“That's more like it. You can be on dip duty.” Octavia continues to ramble about playlists and outfits as they file out of the class, until Indra asks Lexa if she can “stay back for a few minutes.” Yikes.

“I'll catch up with you tomorrow,” she tells Octavia, resuming her seat beside the door.

Lexa expects her professor to complain about the low word count of her hastily emailed essay, or perhaps the half-hearted conclusion she'd churned out whilst brushing her teeth.

What she doesn't predict is Indra's _sympathy_ when she says: “I think you need to read the entire novel over again.”

No one ever asked her to read A Tale of Two Cities “over again.”

“I don't understand why-”

“Lexa, your assignment overlooks such a vital part of chapter six; I'd be surprised if a short-sighted baby seal managed to miss what you spent eight pages skirting around.” Wow, okay; _harsh._

“But-”

“Just return a revised version to me by next Friday.” She narrows her eyes, turns back to the pile of papers on her desk.

 _Great._ Now Lexa has to has to spend the weekend re-doing the stupid essay, as well as freaking out about her not-a-date with Clarke at Bellamy's party. She frowns when her cell begins to buzz, certain she's due yet more bad news.

_11:11 AM_

_Clarke Griffin_

_I got the internship! x_

(Lexa would re-write a thousand stupid assignments, just to shift the order of the universe, deliver Clarke the galaxy she deserves.)

_11:13 AM_

_Lexa Woods_

_I'm proud of you, Clarke. x_

She pauses before completing the text, thumb hovering over “send.” Is “proud” the right term? Clarke isn't her girlfriend, not officially. Nor are they characters in a fiction book, crooked hearts that need each other “oh so much.”

But they're something, and that's better than Lexa could ever have hoped. _message delivered._

 

She's wearing a dress. She's wearing a dress and her hands are shaking and that's why there's lipstick smeared at the corner of her mouth. Which is ridiculous, right?

Lexa isn't sixteen any more, too small for her body, too fragile to bear sturdy bones. She isn't about to watch Clarke dance with a boy who doesn't deserve her, hide in some stranger's toilet and wish to god she'd never been invited.

Clarke kissed her; Clarke is real and tangible and she kissed _her._

Instead of wondering whether her eye makeup connotes “fun” or “flirty,” Lexa should probably just ring the stupid door bell and get the awkward part over with.

She's about to do just that, when Raven turns the handle on the other side of the glass, no doubt judging Lexa for her comic “should I, shouldn't I” routine.

“You're late,” she chastises, handing her a suspiciously sparkling drink.

“I was...” Lexa trails off, unable to come up with a viable excuse. “Where's Clarke?”

Raven smirks, no doubt catching the cartoon stars as they fall from Lexa's eyelashes. “She's in the basement with the rest of the ragtag gang. We're about to play spin the bottle.”

Spin the bottle? Maybe she really _is_ back in highschool.

“Really? We're not twelve.”

“Don't worry, it's just an excuse for Bellamy to make out with some girl he likes. Reflection? Echo? Who knows.”

_You and I were, you and I were fire// You and I were, you and I were fire// You and I were, you and I were fire, fire fire_

As soon as Lexa hears the opening notes of “Fourth of July,” she figures Clarke is on music duty, can't help but smile at her choice of song. _(Because every sleepless sleepover deserves an anthem; a melody to describe the curve of your mouth, and how it would fit against my own._ _)_

“Uh, Raven? Could you maybe stop staring at my boobs?”

“Dude, I'm not staring at your boobs. I'm staring at your _heart._ ”

With cheesy pick-up line #1 already utilized in the space of four minutes, Lexa decides this is going to be a long, long night...

 

She sits beside Clarke in the circle, knees knocking on every exhale. It's the closest they've been in days, but it's not nearly close enough to quell Lexa's lilac flame.

Clarke is... quiet. She seems distracted, distant. Perhaps it's the stress of her gallery début, or the rift with her mom that refuses to heal. Lexa smooths her thumb over Clarke's knee, mumbles a “hello” that she hopes will put her at ease.

“Hi.”

_I said I'd never miss you// But I guess you never know// May the bridges I have burned light my way back home_

“Okay, okay; since _I_ provided the bottle, _I'm_ going first,” Raven announces, twirling her peach schnapps at a rate that is, quite frankly, alarming.

“But it's _my_ party,” Bellamy points out, stealing a glance at the girl Lexa can only assume to be Echo. She glances back, and he looks down at the ground.

“Yeah, well, I _am_ the party.” After a great deal of sighing and scowling (mostly on Bellamy's part), Raven formally commences the game by making out with Octavia. It's awkwardly long to say the least, eventually broken up by Bellamy's comment of “ew, that's my sister.”

“Sorry, Bell,” Octavia grins, slipping an arm around Raven's waist. Public displays of affection aside, Lexa has to admit that they're pretty damn cute.

_I'll be as honest as you let me// I miss your early morning company// If you get me// You are my favourite “what if”// You are my best “I'll never know”_

Bellamy's spin _technically_ lands on Lexa, but she shifts a little to the right so he can blush his way through kissing Echo. What are strangers for, right?

She looses interest after that, watching Clarke rather than everyone else. _Love you like the New York skyline, better than any tourist ever could._ _(I never cared much for art, until I “re-met” you._ _)_

The blonde seems to have lost her “party animal” edge, more interested in the colour of the walls than the topic of conversation. Lexa is just about to murmur “you okay?”, when Raven (loudly) announces that it's Clarke's turn.

“Huh?”

“Your turn? The game, remember?”

“Oh..right. I think I'll pass.”

“Pass?” Raven looks aghast, her girlfriend wearing a matching expression. “It's spin the bottle, Clarke. Nobody “passes” spin the bottle.”

“Ugh, fine.” She forces a smile, but it breaks at the edges, a bullet to Lexa's blown out chest.

_Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean any of it// I just got too lonely, lonely, whoa// In between being young and being right// You were my Versailles at night_

Taking a swig of her own drink, Clarke rotates the bottle. It _almost_ does a full 360, but stops short at Lexa's knee.

Raven raises her eyebrows, Octavia elbows her in the ribs. Even the oblivious Monty and Jasper seem fairly clued up. And Lexa?

She waits for the feeling of soft lips that doesn't come, a promise writ in shiny gloss. Because Clarke doesn't kiss her. Clarke stutters and stammers, whispers “I'm sorry, Lex.” But she doesn't kiss her.

“ _Clarke,”_ Lexa begs now, all her armour turned to dust. She forgets that love is weakness, that metaphors are dumb, remembers only “I want you” in her dorm room.

“I have to go.”

She leaves without looking back; the girl who cracked open the entire world.

And that's when Lexa understands, she finally understands. The problem was never that Clarke isn't attracted to girls, or even that she isn't attracted to _her_ , it's that she wants to bite, scratch, fuck her, but she won't even kiss Lexa in front of her friends because that would make it _rea_ _l._ Too real, maybe.

_There's a wrong way to be in love, think I ticked every blue-blonde box._

They're just friends with benefits, lies that fade before the sunrise. And though her heart aches at the thought, Lexa would sooner go back to being strangers.

 


	3. Chapter 3

….......

Crush /krʌʃ/ _n._ 2. _informal._ A brief but intense infatuation for someone, especially someone _unattainable._

“Wait for me by the tree,” Clarke instructs, all smiles outside the middle-school art room, off to retrieve a purple paint-pot, or collect a portrait-painting.

Lexa isn't really sure about the finer details of the expedition, just the way that her friend's lip curled around the letter “p” as she explained it to her, the weight of Clarke's gaze when she asked, “you'll be okay here, right?”

_Blue like the ocean, and blue like bird-song, the colour of misery and joy; two pritt-stick hearts become one._

Lexa nods solemnly, in the way that only seventh graders can. “I'm good.”

Clarke smiles again; detaches warm hands from colder palms, oblivious to the sunlight she lets slip, out through the collage of their fingertips.“I won't be long.”

She skips a beat, then skips away, leaving Lexa awkward, freezing and alone. That is, until she's spotted by Harper across the busy yard.

“Hey, Lexa? You're in Mr Wallace's math class, right? Because I have him for calculus next semester and I was wondering if you-” She chatters at a hundred miles a minute, rambling about test papers and cherry-scented erasers, a well-meaning jumble that Lexa can only half-understand.

“... and I've been learning how to read people's fortunes. Look, give me your hand.” Harper grasps at Lexa's sleeve, tracing her thumb over the cracks in skin. “See, this long, broken line _here_ means that you're going to be “unlucky in love.” And the curved one? Reaching out towards that blue vein? It symbolises future hope and happiness.”

She pauses for a second, struck by the paradox of Lexa's palms. “Wait, that can't be right. Let me take another look.” Against all better judgement, Lexa humours her sort-of-friend, surrenders her wrist to finger ratio for closer inspection.

“Oh. I _see._ If you look at the faint line upside down...”

She doesn't think to glance back at the art-room doors, doesn't see the girl whose hand she'd sooner be holding, or the crumpled drawing that the blonde stuffs haphazardly into her backpack.

_(It's a story of sky meet earth upon a crooked page, the most innocent proposal sketch, of soft breath under even softer sheets.)_

“It was nothing,” Clarke will say, while they're watching “The Breakfast Club” on Lexa's old DVD player.“I couldn't find it on the drying rack.” And Lexa will shrug and swallow her confessions, slip an arm around the waist of her not-girlfriend.

“That sucks,” she'll mumble, hiding her blush beneath the glow of the big screen, profanity away from prying eyes- sacrilege she doesn't yet understand.

“Yeah,” Clarke concedes, a soliloquy to the other girl's floor.“You have _no_ idea.”

… _......._

 

It's the day before her essay is due, and Lexa has been staring at chapter 11 of “A Skyscraper’s Oath” for the past two hours.

“ _\- He just left. Without word, without warning. He left, and that was the end of that.”_

“ _-She just left. With words unspoken, warnings writ in half-moon scratches. She left, and I don't know how to kill the spiders, that crawl the hollows of my throat.”_

How can “he left” be interpreted in any other way? Lexa even tries turning the book on it's side, searches for an upside-down message of “he came back.” Suffice to say, it doesn't work.

“ _Love is weakness,”_ she types out in tiny font, Helvetica bold glaring through the screen of her laptop. _(Something is: rising, tumbling, breaking; spilling your name onto my criss-cross margin- wish I could write you in Times New Roman, map your mouth in Urban Jungle.)_

Which, okay, is probably not the best start to an end of term assignment worth 20% of her grade, but it's advice that “Alycia” would do well to take. In fact, the American eduction system could have saved themselves 225 pages of utter-

_10:31 AM_

_Raven Reyes_

_Stop brooding over Clarke and call me back!_

Lexa groans. She hasn't spoken to Clarke in 35.5 hours, and in that time “Octaven” have left her a collective total of 102 texts, and 45 voicemail messages. Sure, she feels bad about not picking up, but anything is better than reliving Friday night; blow by blow.

_Can't talk about the way she fit me like a jigsaw, played dot-to-dot with skin on skin, and even less about the sudoku truth; I'd let her do it all over again._

_10:35 AM_

_Lexa Woods_

_Sorry, studying._

It's not a lie, not exactly. Hey, all of her books are technically _open._ She's just not... reading them.

_10:36 AM_

_Raven Reyes_

_I'm coming over_

Lexa is halfway through typing out “Raven. No.” when she hears a knock at her door, quickly followed by (what sounds like) a hairpin jammed into the lock.

Her suspicions are confirmed seconds later, when Lexa is joined by the (annoyingly endearing) burglar in question.

“Wow. You look terrible,” Raven comments, in lieu of greeting or explanation, barging in with several pints of cookie dough ice cream, and two spoon-sized lumps in her jacket pocket.

“Did you just break into my dorm?”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Should have come up with it earlier.”

Lexa sighs in response, rubbing the “Oath” from under her eyes. Procrastination is pretty damn exhausting. “Raven, I know you mean well, but I really don't want to talk about-”

“We don't have to,” she interjects, flopping down on Clarke's- _the right_ side of the bed. “I figured you could use a friend, that's all.”

_I figured we'd be sickly-sweet whispers in a fort of blankets, sun melt snow below beneath the veil of night time. Instead you loaned me spine on bed-frame, hips slicing ribs under the darkest of tarpaulin._

“Oh. Okay.” (Maybe past-Lexa's Hagen Daz cliché wasn't such a bad idea.) “Do you want to watch a movie or...”

“I heard the 100 released a new sequel? A new, _gay_ sequel,” Raven grins, patting the mattress all faux-seduction.

Lexa rolls her eyes, but collapses atop the covers, accepting her _friend's_ thousand-calorie offering. “I suppose it can't be any worse than the first one.”

“I'll take that as a strong “yes.”

(Three hours of break-ups, make-ups and sword fights later, Lexa falls asleep to the sound of Raven and Octavia arguing over her Netflix account, wonders if this is what “platonic” was always supposed to feel like.)

…..

_Maybe my heart really is a metaphor, and a good one at that; I just don't think that yours, will ever quite catch up._

(88 pages down, 137 still to go.)

… _.._

 

It is, of course, inevitable that Lexa should see Clarke again. They both study biology in the same building, the same lab, the same too-big state; border made entirely of daisy chains.

“I don't think I can be your lab partner any more,” is all she says, all she plans on saying, to the girl who'll kiss her in prose but not in poetry, when they sit down to their class on Monday morning.

(The real thing doesn't go nearly as smoothly.)

Clarke meets her gaze across the ocean of their desk, reaches out to bridge the gap between continents. _If only I could I'd fold the atlas, trade you sunken Paris for the new-found city of Atlantis._

It takes all of Lexa's willpower to restrain from smoothing away the creases in her ex-friend's forehead, wrapping cold shoulders in her favourite borrowed hoodie. (To balance the formula: add the image of lips moving impossibly farther, multiply by party-buzz grown quiet.)

“Could you return my notes and-”

But then Clarke is gripping her wrist and breaking her heart, a false promise of two wouldn't-be-lovers doomed from the star-crossed start.

“Why?”

_Because I want what you can't give me, because I hate how much I love you._

_(_ _Because the sky is fucking beautiful, but I can't stop thinking about you.)_

“Lex, _Lexa_ , if this is about Friday night...”

“You don't have to explain yourself,” Lexa mutters, trading all-too-blue for faded tile, counting every time this stupid work-bench (or rather, it's inhabitant) made her smile.“Trust me, I get it.”

“You do?” Clarke asks, a little sceptical, but probably grateful she doesn't have to have the oh so fake “it's not you it's me” talk, burdened by the weight of a story she doesn't want. “Because, I mean, I get how much it hurts when someone leaves like that.”

Lexa frowns. She was under the impression that the Clarke/Finn split had been perfectly amicable, and according to Octavia, the blonde hasn't dated anyone else. Perhaps she's speaking figuratively, drawing on characters from books and film. That, at least, seems more likely than anyone ever giving up the chance to be with _Clarke._

“... but I have to leave for my art programme and-”

She trails off, so Lexa fills in the blanks herself. _And you're not worth waiting for. And maybe I'll meet someone else. (And_ _really,_ _truly_ _, I just don't care enough to capture you through pen or lens.)_

“I understand. But I'd rather finish this project on my own. I work better that way.”

Honestly? Clarke looks a little hurt. (At least all she's loosing is a friend, sleepover secrets congealing inside a bottle of nail varnish. Lexa is cutting the strings that connect concept to metaphor, giving up what feels like her entire world.)

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” She hands over a copy of their experiment notes, and their fingers decidedly do not brush- Lexa instead choosing to endure several paper cuts.

“Thanks.”

For the first time in not nearly long enough, she makes the mistake of walking away and looking back, the image of Clarke pairing with Niylah carving a hole in her chest.

But that's okay. It's just the price Lexa deserves to pay, for breaking rule #1 (twice), and falling in love with her best friend.

 

 

Unfortunately, as Lexa is beginning to learn, the phrase “I'd rather not discuss this” means less to Octavia than it does to her girlfriend.

“Why don't you just _talk_ to her?” she implores, as they head out of English class, Lexa having handed in her second attempt of the same ridiculous essay.

“I did. I told her I didn't want to be her lab partner any more."

Octavia wince-gasps, swatting Lexa with her copy of 'A Skyscraper's Oath'- a battering ram proving to be the only thing that the novel is actually good for.

“But you _do_ want to be her lab partner. Or her girlfriend. Preferably her wife.”

Lexa pretends that the word “wife” doesn't loop flowers around her ribcage, “she loves me, she loves me _not_ ” playing like a record stuck on repeat. She's twenty one years old for god's sake, not some overgrown teen who never got over her first crush, doodling the wrong kind of hearts in her biology book.

_If this was a movie, I'd love you while we're both young and pretty, but I've found that reality, lasts longer than the credits take to roll; that silver-screen kisses, aren't the end of the road._

“Can we drop this now?”

“No.”

“Octavia-”

“Promise me you'll go to Clarke's gallery opening. I'm assuming you don't know the date because of the whole “silent treatment” thing you guys are doing, but it's on the third of next month at 7pm.”

“I don't think that's such a great idea...”

“Lexa, regardless of all the weird, she's going to want you there. You're still her best friend. More than friend. It's complicated friend. Whatever.”

When it comes to obscure cinematography, ancient mythology, and the complex psyche of Raven Reyes, Octavia Blake is right, like, 99.9% of the time. In this scenario? Not so much.

Sure, Lexa wants more than anything than to be at Clarke's gallery opening. She's still “proud” in ways that aren't allowed, the wrong kind of possessive over watercolours that aren't her own. But Clarke doesn't want her there. Not with Lexa staring at the artwork compressed into 206 bones, playing the role of “lover” instead of “study buddy.”

Explaining any of that to Octavia, however, would result in nothing more than quizzical looks and raised eyebrows. She and Raven are the poster couple of domestic bliss, their biggest rift stemming from “who ate the last of the cereal.” (Spoiler alert- it was actually Clarke.)

So she lies. “I'll think about it,” Lexa mumbles, fingers forming a cross behind her back.

“I'm taking that as a _yes_ ,” Octavia warns, a different side of the same coin. “Anyway, do you want to hit up Lava Java?”

“I prefer the Roastery.”

“Are you saying that because you want to pay 30 cents extra for a sub-par cup of coffee, or because there's less risk of bumping into Clarke beside the counter?”

_Damn, she's good._

“I like their espresso,” Lexa shrugs. (She may be a serial liar, and an even worse friend, but at least she's still got all of her _p r i d e._ )

 

 

It's been two weeks, three chapters and four failed assignments since Lexa ended her lab partnership with Clarke, and the word “strangers” is beginning to seem a lot closer to reality than fear.

Not that they're estranged in the typical sense. Lexa knows when the blonde wears her hair in braids instead of free-fall, watches her work and laugh and brush shoulders with Niylah. She's just not quite close enough to check out her sketch of the day, smell notes of coconut and jasmine and something oh-so-trademark _Clarke._

_Can't forget the Europe-shaped birthmark on her inner thigh, still felt-tip tattooing the lyrics she likes. Tired of accidentally picking up her favourite snacks, studying for a test that was never really mine to take._

“Lexa?” her professor calls out, directing the attention of half the class. “Section 7 page 85 of your textbook?” Oh, right. The _actual_ test that she should be studying for.

“Sorry,” she says, ignoring the way that Clarke's curious gaze makes her stomach flip, arteries in her neck pulled taunt and tight. She smiles, just a trace, and Lexa drops her stare to the jumble of jargon on her desk.

(Though she can't deny the way her own mouth aches to smile back.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the wait between chapters, and the fact that I decided to make this story 4 chapters long instead of 3 ahaha. I just thought it would be helpful to maybe get some feedback on this before writing the ending.


	4. Chapter 4

“Lexa, this is the second time you've failed the assignment on volume two of A Skyscraper's Oath.”

Lexa braces herself for the onslaught of Indra's lecture, is half prepared to make her escape out of the open window.

“I-”

“You should finish reading the rest of the novel.” Wait, _what?_ “My lesson plan had us continuing until winter break, but I think you could really benefit from finishing the story early. Gaining some new perspective.”

Lexa should be thrilled that she's not being failed, or even removed from her course. She should rush back to her dorm to complete the reading, take a chance on “third time lucky.”

But there's something about that dumb book that really hits home, crushes the picket-fence of her ribcage; in slowmo. _A tale as old as time, a tale of wrong and sin and spite. I am doomed, always, as the side-show, a love interest spanning just three pages, when you were my entire novel: six volumes of_ _spilled guts, sorted neatly into paragraphs._

“Thank you, Indra.”

“Finish the book. Then you can thank me.”

Lexa nods dutifully, but can't help thinking that the only “thank you's” she'll be giving away after _that_ car crash, will be uttered to the contents of her mini-fridge.

_Maybe my double-pump is only a metaphor when she's around, and in the absence of her touch, I'm no longer a masterpiece worth writing about._

 

She passes by Clarke's dorm on the way to her own, can't help but stop for the briefest of seconds, old habits dying hard.

“- No, my mom isn't coming.”

Lexa knows she should walk away, that she's invading Clarke's privacy and breaking rules she wrote herself, listening in to a phone conversation that certainly doesn't concern _her._

“... we haven't talked in, like, weeks.”

But there's something about her voice that just sounds so... sad, sad like the time they went to Abby's house for dinner and held hands, sad like she's pinning all of her hope on paper clouds.

“I'll be fine. I just, I just really wish she could be there for me, you know. I mean, even my best friend isn't coming any more.”

She cringes at the allusion to herself, guilt bearing a city upon Lexa's back. _I always swore I'd freeze my own heart if it meant thawing hers, so why is she just as miserable, as th_ _e gir_ _l_ _who fell for the stars in the sky,_ _a mermaid who sought her soulmate on dry land?_

“I did what I had to do, O. I didn't think she'd cut me out like that.”

Even with the college's awful cell reception, Lexa doesn't miss Octavia's exhale-grunt of annoyance, the high-pitched buzz of her launching into a new argument.

“I know, I know. I miss her, that's all.”

She leaves after that, loosing the stomach to listen any more. (Lexa may or may not whisper “I miss you, too” to the empty hall, only her inflated ego preventing the sound from carrying into Clarke's room.)

 

She doesn't go to class, doesn't finish reading “A Skyscraper's Oath,” and has trouble sleeping for more than three hours at a time. By Friday, Lexa has had enough.

So she drives. She drives with the windows rolled down and music turned up loud, drives until she's sick of the sight of Starbucks logos and highway signs. It isn't until Lexa arrives at the Griffin residence that she realises where she's been going, what she came here to do.

Even if she won't be around to see it, Clarke deserves to be all smiles beneath her oil pastels, a masterpiece within a masterpiece. Abby can't ignore the artistic genius that is her daughter, right? Right.

Pulling her sleeves down, down over her wrists, Lexa knocks on the front door, back against the December chill.

“No, I don't want to buy any... Lexa?”

“Um, yeah. Hello.” _Nice one, Woods._ Since Abby doesn't open with an “it's been so long” or “how are things?”, Lexa figures it's okay if she starts to speak.

“I'm really sorry to bother you and I realise that it's not my place to say anything, but...Clarke won the art competition she entered. She got the gallery showcase, and the internship.”

Abby grips the door handle a little tighter, gaze set in stone. “That's...great.” She doesn't seem entirely convinced.

“It is. It's really great, in fact.” She pauses for breath, tries to recollect herself. “You should go to Clarke's gallery opening, I know it would mean a lot to her.”

“I don't think that's-”

“Your daughter is amazing. I mean, I'm talking Renaissance-level stuff. Look at this.” Lexa scrabbles around in her pocket, searching through Clarke's napkin drawings, mementos from a lab-partnership grown sour. She picks out a simple flower, the product of one of their late night “study” sessions.

Lexa isn't sure whether it's the colour or the shade, the arrangement of light across the makeshift page, but for some reason it's by far her favourite. _Gardenia equals “secret love,” though I'm blind to all but_ _blatant_ _touch._

“See?”

“Look, Lexa, I'm not denying that she's talented. It's just... we haven't spoken in almost a month. How would I even begin to apologise, to...” Abby shreds tissue between her fingers, white flakes forming the basis of her abandoned argument.

“I'll think about it,” she says at last, lips pursed in a watery frown.

If Abby's “I'll think about it” is anything like Lexa's, then she has almost certainly failed in her “not really an assignment” assignment.

“Take this,” she offers, once again brandishing the napkin tapestry. “ _When_ you go tomorrow, you can give this back to Clarke. Tell her I said hi.”

 _It's like ripping off a band-aid,_ Lexa tells herself, lighter pockets and broader shoulders. Some people throw out engraved lockets or old photographs, she's giving up head-in-the-clouds hope for the greater good.

But Abby still hesitates, probably choking on the same pride that cost Lexa an extra letter in her name. (Well, maybe not _entirely_ the same.)

“You're not going?” she asks, and Lexa looks away, burrowing further into the confines of her all-too-thin “winter” jacket.

“Clarke and I... haven't exactly been on the best of terms lately,” she explains, staring down at the (slightly crushed) flower in her hand. “It's easier for everyone if I stay away.”

“Not for Clarke,” Abby blurts, pressing the napkin art back into Lexa's palm. “We may not have been on “the best of terms,” either, but anyone can see how much she cares for you, Lexa. It killed her when you left the first time.”

Lexa's icicle shudders to a halt, cracking against the confines of her chest. She tries to reason that Clarke's mom is embellishing for effect, that “cares” and “killed” are just blown up versions of the narrative: “estranged friend.”

_Know you better than I know myself, from favourite ice-cream to a skull-full of regrets. Only wish I could figure out, where I fit into the galaxies of your head._

“I'm sure that's not _entirely_ tr-”

“I'll come to Clarke's gallery opening,” Abby cuts her off. “On the condition that you do, too. I'm sure we both have some goodbyes to say before she leaves for her internship.”

For approximately 0.03 seconds, Lexa considers protesting, storming off without looking back. Less than two days ago, she would have done exactly that, decided that Clarke is better off without the crush she can't return.

But after the “overheard” phonecall, Abby's ultimatum.... Clarke needs her best friend right now, a vacant pair of arms that offer “house” instead of “home.” And Lexa is determined to pull off “platonic,” to swallow her hurt and hide her longing, if it means making her sun shine a whole lot brighter.

“Okay,” she agrees, carefully folding the token for safekeeping.“You should still take this, though. It was wrong of me to keep it.” That much is true. Clarke had intended to abandon the drawing at a booth in Lava Java, so Lexa saved it while she was in the bathroom.

Not that it's a big deal or anything. She just thought it looked pretty, that's all. (The only piece of “Clarke” that Lexa was able to hold on to.)

“I think she'd rather you have it,” Abby says, in a voice that's gentler than when she first answered the door.

Lexa manages a smile, a small one, for the first time in who can remember how long. “I'll pick you up at six,” she mutters, stupidly wishing that she was addressing daughter in place of mother.

“See you then.”

Lexa doesn't feel the cold on the way back to her dorm, and on her lips lie the words to a song, she can't quite remember any more.

_Maybe I'm a little older, a little wiser, but even in death I'll have my arms outstretched, waiting, still waiting, on you. (All I ask, is that you wait on me, too.)_

 

It's the day of Clarke's gallery opening. The evening of Clarke's gallery opening, to be more specific. (Ten minutes before she has to leave to pick up Abby, to be entirely exact.)

Lexa is _not_ “freaking out,” as Raven would say, or “lovesick,” like Octavia would add. She's “fine” with a capital “F,” except for the part where she really, really isn't.

“ _-I fill up my days with wanting him, wait for the part where he's supposed to come back. He never does.”_

Yeah, “A Skyscraper's Oath” has gotten dark lately. Not “The 100” dark, but all too grim to encourage Lexa to read on. She'll finish it when Clarke is gone.

_Terrified of fiction come true, a brain to page transaction paid for in the memory of teeth and lips, our every atom come undone._

“Hey, Lexa, shouldn't you be leaving right about now?” comes a not-so-mysterious voice from just outside Lexa's dorm. Perhaps the real question is: will the meddling duo ever leave _her_ alone?

“Yeah, you don't want to be late and miss out on the free champagne!”

(She'll take that as a firm “no.”)

 

“Are you ready?” Abby asks, peering quizzically at the frozen figure in the driver's seat, who hasn't moved since she pulled up seven minutes ago.

Lexa nods despite herself, turns the key in the ignition. “Ready as I'll ever be.”

(True enough.)

 

Clarke is real. She is real, tangible, and oh so very beautiful, ethereal as she weaves her way through a sea of guests, her name like starlight on the tips of tongues. (Or, at least, in Lexa's mouth.)

Lexa is so busy watching her, that she doesn't even stop to notice the artwork on the walls, an error that will soon become known as #mistake number 1.

“You should talk to her first,” she tells Abby, scanning the room for Raven and Octavia. They're probably making out in the one stall bathroom, or hiding under the display shelf with the technically free alcohol, Lexa judges, having full knowledge of their prior shenanigans.

“Are you sure?” Abby double and triple checks, and Lexa repeatedly confirms.

“I'm sure.”

She stares at the pair from across the room, conspicuous even when spying over the screen of her phone. They _seem_ to be talking through their problems, all signs pointing to positive body language.

Clarke even goes in for a hug after the five minute mark, a real hug this time; not like the “going through the motions” one they shared before. Lexa turns away from the scene, already having intruded too much on a family that isn't her own, a family to whom she owes so much.

Plus, the snack table looks fairly appetising.

 

“I know you persuaded my mom to come tonight.”

Lexa almost chokes on her third profiterole, completely unprepared for Clarke's impromptu arrival. Last she checked, the blonde was deep in conversation with Abby, surrounded by a circle of champagne-holding admirers, all waiting to compliment the artist.

“I-”

“You didn't have to do that. Not for me.”

How does she _still_ not get it? Lexa considers saying,“I'd part the seven seas just to let you cross, tell a million jokes in the vain hope that you might laugh.” Instead, she settles on, “I kind of did,” hoping to pull off the very picture of blasé. (Little does she know, her act is doomed to fail.)

“I wish I could figure you out,” the blonde whispers, and Lexa suppresses a shiver, half-screws her eyes shut.

 _You and me_ _both,_ she thinks, wondering what kind of super-strength glue, is keeping this sunbeam tethered to earth, this lightening bolt bottled in a lipstick tube.

Silence stretches out between them, awkward like their once-comfortable lulls never were, even after three (long and miserable) years apart.

“Anyway, I'm really glad you could make it,” Clarke says, around the same time that Lexa launches into her go-to small-talk topic of “So, the buffet-”

_Oh._

She's torn between stating “I wouldn't have missed it for the world” and murmuring “I'm proud of you.” What actually comes out is “I can't stay long,” guard coming up at the thought of de-crypting her very own metaphor.

“Lexa, if we could just talk about Bellamy's party...”

“What's there to talk about?” Lexa jumps on the defensive, her every nerve-ending exposed. “Look, Clarke, I get it, you're not interested in me “romantically” or anything, and that's fine, but I-”

_But I want you like you could never imagine, want you in more ways than there are to want a person._

“Look up.”

“What?”

“Look up, and then tell me that I'm not “romantically interested” in you,” Clarke challenges, (dares?), her hand a steady weight on Lexa's arm.

So she does. For the first time, maybe ever, Lexa casts her gaze skyward, confronted by the masterpiece(s), that her best friend worked on for more than just the one semester. And it's _her_ , reading and writing and laughing and sitting, every detail accounted for in the flick of a brush, flaws made imperfectly perfect, with the colour-product of eleven different palettes.

_From jawline to mouth-creases, artist has studied subject, crafted a landscape of flesh and blood, desired the neck-shoulder pin-point, where her entire universe was borne._

And, oh god, Clarke is in love with her? Clarke has looked _upon_ much like she has been looked _at_ , drawn her object in the same way that Lexa has written about hers. _(The heart is a metaphor, and those who seek to call it a machine, have already lost theirs.)_

“You... you love me,” Lexa breathes; a statement, not a question.

“Yeah,” Clarke confirms anyway. “I do.”

Lexa kisses her first this time, reaches out to re-write their happy ending, erase a decade worth of “unrequited” pining.

_Champagne touches beneath your home-made homage, don't know why I thought, that I could ever forget you, forget us, forget the feeling when our lips brushed- like watercolours become one; a living, bleeding oil pastel._

But Clarke doesn't kiss back, history repeating itself. “This doesn't change anything, Lexa. It was wrong of me to kiss you, that first time.”

“No, Clarke, I'm glad you did. I wanted you to.”

“I'm leaving in two days, just like you left me behind after high school ended,” she continues, sugar-soft and bitter-sweet, in a tone that doesn't match the words she speaks.

“I don't know when or even _if_ I'll be back, and I couldn't put you through that, starting something that I won't be around to finish.”

“Clarke, _please_...” Her voice is desperate, ugly, raw, reducing Lexa to the fiction book character she never wanted to become, the girl who _needed_ just a little too much.

“I, _we_ can't do long distance, Lexa. It doesn't work. But I still want to be friends. Best friends, like always.”

Somehow this, _this_ hurts more than when Lexa's crush was one sided, hurts more than when she thought that Clarke was just experimenting. And she could die; Lexa could die and it wouldn't matter because Clarke Griffin is in love with her, Clarke is _in love_ with her and yet she won't _be_ with her, and it really doesn't get any more twisted-up than that.

“Best friends,” she spits, the phrase tasting foreign on her tongue, making a mockery of blonde hair tangled in brown, tainting the memory of palm-kisses, as a ten year old Clarke turned a playground scrape into an upside-down frown.

_She said “just friends” though I knew we were more, and I'd sooner be crashing hips and biting skin, than living in shades of hands stuffed in pockets, pretending to succeed in my quest for platonic._

Before Clarke can say anything else (or let her skipped beats do the talking), Abby approaches, come to offer her final praises, and tell her daughter that she “should be leaving."

“Me too,” Lexa adds, unwilling to stand around and discuss the weather, do the things that “buddies” are supposed to- even if it means missing out on Clarke's dimpled grin when a stranger swoons over her art, the piece of the blonde's own metaphor, that hangs from the walls.

“Lex, I-”

Lexa walks away before she hears the rest of Clarke's sentence, coming to the conclusion, that maybe the best goodbyes, are those left unsaid, those from which one may hope to cling, to even the smallest remnants of their _pride._

(That doesn't explain why she's never felt more _humble_ , than when taking one last look at Clarke's public-secret declaration, bone-cage still slightly ajar.)

 

Lexa doesn't put off reading A Skyscraper's Oath any longer. She figures, what is there left to loose? Clarke is leaving tomorrow, maybe for good, and it's not as if she has anything better to do.

_Since you've been fading from my pages, I've been dwindling, too- the ghost of who I was, when “you” and “I” made two._

Well, besides moping, writing, and re-watching The 100. (It gets better around forty minutes into the second movie, which is all that anyone can really ask from modern cinematography.)

But she still has a long overdue assignment to finish; her last chance saloon. It's with a heavy heart, that Lexa finally sits down to read the insufferable book.

The final volume begins much the same as the others, Alycia lamenting the loss of Taylor, waiting on hetro-domesticity from high up in her bell tower. Lexa counts the amount of times that the word “love” is mentioned in a single passage, and it totals close to 27.

Chapter 30 takes a somewhat different approach.

“ _\- and I was done chasing after the girl who shut me out, the girl who never even said “I love you” back.”_

At first, Lexa scoffs at the switch to Taylor's perspective. He's clearly a grade A idiot with an extremely short-term memory, already finding a way to discard the sickeningly romantic times spent in his ex-girlfriend's New York apartment.

Alycia has been rambling for the entire novel about her damned metaphor, waxing lyrical about his “train-track” veins and “moonbeam” smile. How could he possibly think otherwise?

She scans the text for some kind of verbal confirmation, a key piece of dialogue where our heroine sums up how she's feeling.

There are none.

Talk about unreliable narrator- 225 pages of stuttered prose, and she couldn't take a single second to show or tell. Would it have really killed her to make some kind of big gesture, to-

_Oh._

Lexa reads back over her own “story,” unable to find a single instance, when her mouth translated the tear in her chest, spoke the inscription written on her lungs. It was _Clarke_ who knocked on the door of her dorm, _Clarke_ who suggested that they become lab partners (almost girlfriends) all over again.

The first day they ever met, her best friend was the once-stranger who asked Lexa to help paint a picture that was “brighter than the sun,” and even after 14 years in love with the same girl, she _still_ hasn't made the first move.

“ _-so I left and hoped she'd follow, always over-estimating, loving a girl who belonged only to skyscrapers.”_

And Lexa doesn't want to morph into Alycia, doesn't want to let Clarke leave without at least _trying_ to fix things. Snapping shut A Skyscraper's Oath, she grabs her keys to come full circle, make a fool out of herself on the blonde's welcome mat.

(Perhaps having an ego, is ever so slightly overrated.)

 

_Chapter 30- Page 225- Dorm number 107_

Lexa falters when she attempts to knock on Clarke's door, history come undone in the space between her knuckles. What if they're simply doomed to end up like Taylor and Alycia, and that's why God (or, rather, Indra) practically forced her to look into the future?

How is she, a (presumably idiotic) college student, supposed to alter the laws of the universe, and erase the work of time and phys-

Apparently, Clarke has some kind of sixth sense, since she opens the door on Lexa's non-existent third knock, sporting bed-head and yesterday's smudged eyeliner, the very image of hot-casual.

Lexa's heart hammers wildly in her ribcage, for the first time in not nearly long enough. _She's_ _brighter,_ _hotter,_ _warmer, and altogether more terrifyingly beautiful than the sun,_ _and I'm seven times as starstruck._

“Lexa? What are you doing here?”

“I, uh, I came to tell you something.” Now that she's actually _doing this_ , it seems more “cheesy rom-com” than “blockbuster cool,” but Lexa is determined to follow through, let herself be _vulnerable_ , just this once.

“Okay...”

She clears her throat, stares at a “safe spot” below Clarke's lips, trying not to be _too_ distracted, by the jut of collarbone, the junction where shoulder meets neck, and tide collides with mountain-top.

_Because I've never felt more divine (see: fractured, exposed, torn open) than by her side, because I think I've found affinity atop cotton covers, religion under white sheets. Screw sin and shame and wrong- she's Nirvana in human form, paradise comprised of skin and bone._

“I came to tell you that I love you, too. I realised that I might have, um, forgotten to say it back last night but... I do, Clarke. I love you.” There's a pause before she adds, “In the more than-friend way, that is.”

Clarke opens her mouth to reply, probably some other version of “we can't,” but Lexa cuts her off, determined to spill all before she looses her nerve.

“Why can't we stay together, geographically speaking?”

“What? Lexa, this internship is my dream. You're the one who encouraged me to apply, who helped get my mom on board with the idea.”

“No, I mean, why can't I come with you? I've almost completed my degree, what rule is there that says I can't go to you when I'm done?”

“I can't ask you to do that,” Clarke murmurs, meeting her gaze under the dim lights of the hallway. She looks sad and soft and smells oh so good, and Lexa longs to reach out and touch, to draw a masterpiece the only way she knows how, the finger-painting she's been working on since she was ten years old.

“You're not asking. Clarke, I can't loose you again, I just can't. You're the only reason I have, _had_ to stay here- probably the reason I came back, even if I didn't know it then.”

Clarke blushes, ever so slightly, a warm pink that only an admirer would notice. She steps closer, and Lexa wonders if night and day have ever merged, if it's possible for water to turn to earth. (With Clarke's hand on her hip, almost nothing seems _entirely_ impossible.)

_I write_ _poetry_ _in tiny notebooks, you draw your life on cardboard. We're jagged lines running parallel,_ _think that maybe_ _we're destined for the sweetest of epilogues._

“And I _want_ to be at every one of your art shows, _want_ to come home to our not-cold apartment and write some sappy novel for college kids to pour over. I _don't_ want to become Alycia, spewing truly terrible prose when I could be kiss-”

Clarke kisses her. Clarke kisses her, and Lexa _should_ be mad that she didn't get to finish her soliloquy, that her “first move” is being stolen. But, as it turns out, her “elaborate engine” turned metaphor, really doesn't give a damn about any of that, only Clarke's happy sigh when Lexa kisses back.

“-ing you,” she finishes when they break apart, and the blonde muffles a laugh against her neck, presses closer to her chest.

“Who's Alycia?” she asks, and Lexa stifles a laugh of her own.

“No one important,” she lies, deciding to explain the endless cliché of A Skyscraper's Oath some other time, like when Clarke isn't doing _distracting_ things with teeth and tongue, and they're not standing in the doorway of her dorm room.

(Dignity is nought but a curse, Lexa decides, when her maybe-sort-of-girlfriend grasps her wrist and drags her inside.)

 

Clarke leaves the next morning- after an hour of not really against her will cuddling, several attempts at “just one last kiss.” If Lexa wasn't one half of what Raven and Octavia have fondly dubbed “Clexa,” she's pretty sure she'd find the pair disgusting.

“Soarewelikeofficiallydating now?” she mumbles against Clarke's hair during their parting hug, prior confidence all but turned to dust. “Because, um, I think I'd like that. If it's okay with you.”

Clarke nod-grins, sunlight threatening to spill from her lips. And honestly? Lexa doesn't know how she got this _lucky_ , except that perhaps it involves some kind of sorcery, a lab experiment gone strangely not-wrong.

“This means I can keep your hoodie, right?”

“No way,” Lexa mock-exclaims, but her _girlfriend_ still drives away with one extra layer, promising to call as soon as she gets there. Lexa watches her go, and it hurts a whole lot less than any other time before. (Maybe because, it's not long until she gets to follow.)

_Some write their poetry about the heart, a metaphorical organ just a little to the left. They could spend a lifetime discussing four valves, two chambers; a drumbeat locked up- diagrams that don't match pictures in colouring books._

_(Forget figurative, forget fantastical, the greatest compliment I could ever pay, is that my brain is in love with your brain.)_

….......

She delivers her third (and hopefully, final) essay attempt to Indra a few days later, assuring her professor that it's deserving of no less than an 'A' grade.

“I'll decide that for myself,” Indra warns, examining the paper from multiple angles, probably searching for an ink stain or spelling error. Lexa wouldn't have expected anything less.

In a strange sort of way, she's really going to miss A Skyscraper's Oath. Sure, it's a little cheesy in some places, angsty in others, with certain critics even claiming that the novel is “a mere fanfiction rip-off” of the acclaimed 'Forest's Vow.' (Which, incidentally, is not all that great itself.)

But it's also a cautionary tale, one of “sick and full of pride”; the polar opposite, of how Lexa intends her and Clarke's story to turn out.

….......

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to anyone who made it this far! this is actually my first time writing anything longer than a one-shot type thing, so I hope it's okay

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr (http://lizgilllies.tumblr.com/) for more fics/posts, and updates on stuff I'm writing. if you want to, of course.


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